Working Across Borders: Global Restructuring and Women’s Work

Abstract

In this article Young examines the legal regulation of labor mobility, particularly the mobility of women workers from developing countries to Canada and the United States. Of particular importance is the employment relationship between domestic/home workers and their employers.

In the era of globalization, domestic, regional and international laws and policies interact to make available to Western employers an easily exploitable supply of laborers from the large pool of Third World women. The legal regime regulating domestic work in Canada and the United State sustains a gendered and racial division of labor and preserves the dichotomy between productive and reproductive activities, thereby maintaining rather than ameliorating women's subordinate status in the workforce.

Keywords: globalization, Third World women, labor mobility